Lack of purposeful activity risks more crime, says Chief Inspector
The prison service must do more to make sure prisoners spend more time out of their cells in purposeful activity and it needs to recruit and retain high-quality staff., according to the Chief Inspector of Prisons in his annual report for 2021–22 published today.
Charlie Taylor also calls for greater support for women prisoners both inside jail and as part of their resettlement into the community, and expresses concern about the “haphazard arrangements” put in place by the Home Office for people who have crossed the Channel in small boats.
The annual report reflects the work of the prison inspectorate over the 12 months to the end of March this year. During this period, it produced 63 separate reports relating to inspections of adult prisons, institutions holding children and young people, immigration detention facilities, and police and court custody areas, as well as scrutiny visits and thematic work.
In his introduction to the report, Mr Taylor says that the lack of purposeful activity in prisons is “a seemingly intractable problem” raised by each of his six predecessors since the first HMI Prisons annual report published 40 years ago. Recent inspections found that some prisoners were locked up for 23 hours a day or more.
In category C training prisons, in spite of their remit, the situation was often little better, with prisoners spending their time sleeping or watching daytime television rather than engaged in the work, education or training that would help them to resettle successfully in the community on release.
Throughout the year prisoners told us that their mental health was suffering, with 51% of men and 76% of women saying they had mental health difficulties. We do not yet know what the longer-term effect of lockdowns will be on prisoners, but there is no doubt that there will be a price to pay for the loss of family visits, the limited chance to socialise with other prisoners, the lack of education, training or work, the curtailing of rehabilitative programmes, the cancellation of group therapy and the dearth of opportunities for release on temporary licence.
Some of the most disheartening inspections were at prisons with large proportions of young men, where the often extensive grounds and workshops remained mostly empty and just a handful of prisoners were receiving any face-to-face teaching. The failure to fill the gaps in the skills and education of these prisoners and the low expectations of their abilities and potential meant they were learning to survive in prison rather being taught how to succeed when they were released.
Unless these men are given the support that they need, there is the potential that they will lead long lives of criminality – creating victims, disrupting their communities and placing a huge burden on the state.
He adds that the findings of the Inspectorate’s joint thematic report with Ofsted into the teaching of reading in prisons published in March had been “shocking”, “depressing” and “demonstrated the lack of ambition for prison education”.
Mr Taylor describes staff recruitment as “perhaps the biggest challenge facing the prison service” given the flow of resignations that have, in some jails, “become a flood”. This problem was being exacerbated by the employment of unsuitable candidates who left the service within the first year of taking up the job.
He also calls on the prison service to identify and promote the most capable prison leaders to carry out “necessary cultural change” in many public sector prisons.
The welcome lifting of all national prison restrictions on 9 May 2022 means that there is now no reason why prisons cannot return to regimes at least as open as they were before the pandemic. There is the chance to reset after a difficult two years. If prisons are to be an essential component of a successful justice system that is trusted by the public to keep them safe, the ambition must also be to go further, making sure that governors and education providers create opportunities for prisoners to develop vital skills that they can use when they return to the community.
On immigration facilities, Mr Taylor says:
I remain very concerned about the haphazard arrangements in place for those who have crossed the Channel in small boats. Promised facilities in Dover had not materialised when we inspected in November 2021, and we found that some families were sleeping on the floor in flimsy tents with inadequate bedding or crammed into facilities where some basic safeguards were not in place.
Notes to editors
- Read the 2021-22 Annual Report, published on 13 July 2022.
- HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment, and promote positive outcomes for those detained and the public.
- HM Inspectorate of Prisons regularly inspects prisons, young offender institutions, immigration removal centres, immigration short-term holding facilities and overseas escorts and court custody. With CQC we support Ofsted in inspecting secure training centres. By invitation, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons also carries out inspections of military detention facilities, prisons in Northern Ireland, and some other overseas prisons and custodial institutions in jurisdictions with links to the UK.
- HMI Prisons is a member of and coordinates the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). The NPM was established under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It consists of 21 existing bodies throughout the UK, which are independent and have the right regularly to inspect all places of detention, and reports to the UN treaty body.
- Please contact media@hmiprisons.gov.uk if you would like more information.